These are the names of the churches, synagogues and mosques whose parishioners prepare hot meals, bake cookies, make 3,000 peanut butter sandwiches a month, donate fruit, money, clothing and time to the Life Center of Upper Darby. (If I missed or misnamed any, I apologize.)

Several of the organizations named above have been doing this for 25 years. Many other groups have come and gone over the years after putting in five years here or 10 years there. But, as feeding project coordinator Marcella Molet puts it, for every one that steps out, another steps up.

Please note, all three of the Abrahamic religions are represented, pretty much in proportion to their numbers in the local community — Jewish, Christian and Muslim, all upholding the same religious obligation to take care of the less fortunate.

And also note, I am aware that many, many other Delaware County and Philadelphia religious organizations do the same year-round, as well at other places. I cannot name them all, but I honor their labor and perseverance over so many years in practicing what they preach — helping the poor.

The Life Center itself wasn’t built until December 1996, but the feeding project was up and running years before that, thanks largely to the efforts of three tireless women — Peggy Hasbrouck, Annie Geers and Marcella — and an unsung cohort of volunteers.

Marcella, the only one of the three still volunteering, remembers Peggy dragging her to an organizing meeting all those many years ago and designating her treasurer of ... well, she wasn’t sure exactly what.

Today, she is the maestro of the feeding project, long called the Community Outreach Project.

It’s not a profit or a nonprofit business or a “program,” it is just the same loose brother and sisterhood of do-gooders with recipes and large kitchens that it started out being so long ago.

Peggy died a few years ago and Annie is past being able to help anymore.

I knew Peggy and Annie slightly back in the early 1990s, which is how I found myself, circa 20 years ago, standing once a month out in front of the 69th Street Terminal, doling out spaghetti, tuna casserole, bread, cookies, and hot coffee or iced tea.

Sometimes, it was miserably cold and our hungry guests struggled to keep their food warm long enough to eat it. Sometimes, it was so hot they didn’t want much more than a cold drink, a sandwich and some shade.

Winter or summer, they always saved a part of the meal “for later,” a cookie, an apple, a slice of bread, because that was the priority, having something to fill their stomachs the next morning.

Almost all then were middle-aged or elderly. Some were homeless, some had a room or the use of a relative’s couch, a few had jobs, but couldn’t make enough to pay rent anywhere, many were chronically ill with diabetes, heart disease, mental illness or addiction.

The people of Upper Darby didn’t much like our feeding the poor on their public doorstep every day, especially when so many came from Philadelphia.

It got ugly for awhile, but the county resolved the issue by building the Life Center on an unwanted patch of mud on the Philadelphia-Upper Darby border. The new facility had a modern kitchen and dining room/meeting center, and space upstairs to house 50 single adults.

Although they had an agreement of sorts with the government agencies, the religious groups could have figured their work was done, that someone else would now feed the hungry.

But they didn’t. They simply moved into that nice, bright stainless steel kitchen and continued to prepare and serve a hot meal every night for 150 to 250 people. Lansdowne Friends Meeting is doing that very thing tonight.

Next Week: Director Jim Shelton and the Life Center’s work.

Jodine Mayberry is a longtime journalist. Her column appears every Friday. You can reach her at jodinemayberry@comcast.net. Read her blog, This Week in Reality, at dtweekreality.blogspot.com.